Fight and Flight
by CoffeeSwan
Summary: AU where Emma is a boxer and Killian is a recovering alcoholic. No magic. Angst. Rated T because of implied violence.


**This is a CaptainSwan!AU of a dream I had last night about two original characters. (Seriously I already wrote one angsty piece today somebody stop me). Warning - this one is a little angsty and is rated T because of implied violence.**

**Disclaimer: Y'all probably know by now that I only own my dreams and not OUAT. **

His shift at The Rabbit Hole ended an hour ago. It's almost 2 am yet he's lying awake on his bed, clad in his black joggers and a T-shirt. He knows he will hear a doorbell in a few minutes and he also knows that tomorrow morning, his kind elderly neighbour will make him tea and try to convince him that girls who show up in the middle of the night are trouble. He would nod politely and she would send him home with a plate of her homemade cinnamon buns.

At precisely 2 am, he hears a faint knock on his door. He sighs because she never knocks. Ever. Must have been a particularly rough one, he guesses and opens the door. Sure enough, there she is.

His Emma.

She is slumped against the wall, barely able to stand. The first things he notices are the scratch on her pale cheek and a black eye. He sighs again and pulls her into his arms, causing her to wince.

"Oh sweetheart" - he whispers as she lays her head on his shoulder. He feels her shaking in his arms and carries her inside the apartment, shutting the door with his foot. He sits her down on his bed and takes out a bag from the cupboard. When he turns around, he sees her lying down on the bed, trying to get comfortable.

"Emma, no. Not yet" - he says gently and pulls her up again. She whimpers and he kisses her forehead, whispering his apologies.

The red hoodie comes off first. She can barely lift up her arms when he pulls it off her. That must be the reason why she couldn't reach the doorbell. He tosses it into the laundry basket, trying to contain his shock at the bruises and places an ice pack on a particularly nasty-looking fist-sized red patch. He straps the other two packs to her arms after placing butterfly kisses on the injuries.

He is used to the bruises, of course. His - well, he was never sure what they were - Emma's preferred recipe for anger management was amateur underground boxing.

It all started when she got out of jail a year ago. He was then a recovering alcoholic who tried to make ends meet by waitressing at a local diner. His AA mate Robin took him to see a match held at an abandoned warehouse, where he first spotted the blonde-haired, green-eyed beauty. She was everyone's favourite, and he could see why. While not particularly muscly, she was fast and smart and knew all the spots where one hit to deliver the worst kind of pain. That night, she defeated a redheaded woman whom the audience nicknamed "The Wicked Witch".

Since that night, he went to each of her matches for a few weeks until she told him to stay away. Apparently, showing up to the fights and not gambling wasn't done. By that time, he's gotten his life somewhat together and got a second job at the bar. Yes, he too was an adrenaline junkie. A recovering alcoholic working in a bar? Most people scoffed at that, but not her. Sometimes, she came in for a drink after a match. And sometimes, she spent the night with him, but she was always gone until morning.

And sometimes, there were nights like tonight. When Emma "Captain" Swan just showed up, all bruised and battered, and he would take care of her.

Her shoes and socks are next to come off. She bites her lip so as not to scream and he feels her feet gentlly, instantly finding the reason she was slumped against the wall outside his apartment. Her ankle is already swollen, so he puts her back in the horizontal position and straps another ice pack to it. The open wound on her other foot causes him to raise his eyebrows.

"Fell down.. on the way here..." - she whispers hoarsely and he nods sighing. He hates that he has to cause her more pain but he nevertheless reaches for the waistband on her pants

"I'm sorry sweetheart" - he pulls them down as gently as he possibly can, knowing that Emma is gritting her teeth. He is barely able to stand the sight of her pale legs covered with red and blue patches, some of them over a few days old and others brand new that he hasn't seen before. He realises that he is out of ice packs and rushes into the kitchen to wet some towels. She is still in the same position as he left her when he comes back. She lets out a hiss when he places the towels on the worst bruises. When he is finished, he produces gauze and wets it with an antiseptic.

"This may sting a little, love" - he says softly, placing the gauze on the wound on her foot. It pains him to hear her strangled sob, but he knows he has to do this.

After disinfecting the wound, he wraps it in a fresh piece of gauze, relieved that the bleeding has stopped. The only things left for him to patch up now are her hands and her face. He examines her hands tenderly with his fingers and lets out a sigh of relief upon realisation that she didn't break any bones this time. He kisses every scratch and every bruise on her knuckles, watching her close her eyes and relax slightly. After he places band-aids on the deeper cuts, he touches the cut on her cheek.

"Emma, love?" - he calls softly. She opens her eyes and realises his unspoken question.

"Regina didn't take off her engagement ring before the match" - she spoke, unable to mask the contempt for her ring nemesis in her voice. She watches him place a soft kiss on the scratch and hisses again at the sting of the antiseptic. He then takes the wet towel and begins to clean blood off her hair, simultaneously feeling for any bumps. He doesn't dare touch her black eye because it looks particularly painful. He just places the last ice pack on it softly and lies down next to her, holding it to her eye.

"Killian?" - she calls after a minute or two.

"Yes, love?"

"Thank you."

He moves carefully to kiss her cheek again.

"You don't have to thank me, Captain" - he says softly. And she really doesn't. Because while they may have their own demons and struggles, while they may be possibly broken beyond repair, the least he can do is patch up her body when she needs it. It's not much in the grand scheme of things, but it's a start.

He knows that she won't be there in the morning. So he stays awake most of the night, until she falls asleep in the early hours of the morning, holding her hand, because that's the only part of her he can touch without causing her pain.

**Reviews mean more one-shots, shipmates ;)**


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